Over 150 Billion Dollars Traded on BitFlyer in Just 2 Months!

For the crypto community in general, 2017’s last two months saw a lot of exciting developments. For starters, Bitcoin made a meteoric rally, hitting the coveted $10,000 mark. Just a few weeks after that, the launch of Bitcoin futures contracts hit the scene and the market capitalization of Bitcoin hit an all-time high before falling sharply.

But for BitFlyer (one of the biggest Bitcoin exchanges in Japan, founded by Yuzo Kano in 2014) the party is still on! With a claim to over 25 percent of Bitcoin’s trading volumes globally, the company disclosed that over $150 billion in trading volume has been transacted on its platform between November and December. This was during the launch of its platform in the European market, right after it had received an operating license on Tuesday at the London blockchain week. Currently, the exchange company is said to be hitting a record high of $50 billion in monthly trades.

Double its Previous Volumes

According to the company’s European COO (Andy Bryant), the recent trading volumes double its previous annual trading volume. He also went on to say,

When we launched in the US we were telling people our trading volume data. At that time, just between January and November, we were quoting year to date volumes of $100 billion. Full-year was $250 billion. December was certainly an interesting month.

And indeed it was as the company is now launching in the UK, with plans to offer free trading to European users up until February with no leverage. This is in contrast to its usual 0.01 percent and 0.15 percent fees charged per transaction, with a 15 x leverage in Japan.

Although Bitcoin’s price has fallen back to December’s all-time high of $10,000 in recent weeks, after its huge spike to nearly $20,000, Bryant still notes that the month of December was “a big month in terms of awareness”. He further added that compared to last year, the trading platform certainly sits in a higher place.

While on the launch of BitFlyer in Europe during the conference, Bryant also disclosed to Business Insider that the company will continue to build on its last year’s $250 billion trading volume as it focuses on building new strengths in the European market.

Market Expansion

Currently, with its newfound license to operate Bitcoin-to–Euro exchanges, the company is looking to target high-volume institutional clients. The company will now be adding its European market to its US and Japanese markets, where it is also licensed to run its Bitcoin exchange services.

What do you think about the latest development by BitFlyer? Will we see more exchanges with record high transactional volumes with the current market volatility? Share your thoughts with us below.